


Skinful Canvas

by You_Light_The_Sky



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Dark, John makes it out ok, M/M, Magical Realism, Somewhat Ambiguous Ending, descriptions of violence, mild descriptions of gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/You_Light_The_Sky/pseuds/You_Light_The_Sky
Summary: A person’s sins gets marked on their skin in such beautiful ways. Sherlock has no such marks and yet his hands are the bloodiest of all. He would so like to mark John in etchings of his own… Serial-Killer!Sherlock





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelblack3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelblack3/gifts).



> This oneshot is a mess. I have no idea what I'm doing. But happy early Halloween.

Mummy always covers up the red-soaked butterflies on her wrists with long woolly sweaters and ladybug-printed mittens. Their massive wings, dipped in hints of blues amongst the red, span up to tip of her knuckles, as if waiting to leap off her fingers and kiss the nearest victim they can.

Sherlock steals those mittens sometimes, just to see the butterflies wrapped around his Mummy’s wrists like shackles. Like ruby-dripped bracelets. Like the red that drips from his cuts when he gets pushed into the ground (a red that always looks more lovely on the bullies he tests his new scalpels on. Mummy always insists on testing new equipment that comes through.)

She never reacts when he steals her mittens. Not even when he burns them and cuts them up. There’s always another pair of mittens that she pulls out of the drawers and the butterflies disappear under ugly looking cloth.

“Why do you keep doing that, Mummy?” he demands because out of everyone in the world, Mummy is unreadable. Mummy is beyond deduction. Not-ordinary. Just like him. They’re both special.

“I’m playing the game, sweetie,” she brings her knife down against the cutting board with a fat clunk and then a plomp of the meat.

Sherlock scowls. She knows how much he hates the game. It’s boring.

But Mummy only shrugs. “Normal people do not show their marks in public. It is considered distasteful.”

He snorts.

“The consequences for showing off my marks would be more irritating than beneficial, especially for our little hobby.”

He kicks the cupboard. “I don’t care! Every human _sins_ , that’s what the marks are _for_. Some leftover defect of evolution to ward off potential predators, to display _knowledge_. Think of what we could learn if ­marks weren’t socially unacceptable, Mummy! The correlation between severity of sin and colour intensity, for example, or what severity of sin even _means_. What, in our biology, is defined as sin and why?”

Mummy pauses, the knife held just above the meat as she looks at him strangely. “…No correlation has ever been proven. Yet.”

Sherlock smiles, eyes flickering to her wrists. “Normal people don’t observe.”

Her eyes trace his pale skin. “No… they don’t.”

She returns to chopping up the leg on the cutting board. Human bones can be very thick at times.

0

When he first sees John Watson in the same style of woolly sweaters as Mummy, he thinks, _one of us,_ before _doctor,_ before _soldier._

When John Watson shoots a cabbie for him, Sherlock thinks, _definitely one of us_.

0

“…I don’t see why we can’t just sell him to some convicts,” Sherlock scoffs, while Mummy knits another scarlet scarf.

“Now, now, sweetie, we both know that normal families do not sell their children to criminals for mere differences in philosophy.”

“Some do,” he snaps. Humans. He can’t understand what runs in their little minds. But at least they provide some mild entertainment in this baseless world.

“Those specimens are considered outliers, Sherlock.”

“If anything, true altruism should be considered the outlier.”

“True enough,” Mummy agrees and Sherlock smiles in triumph, “but just because Mycroft is not one of us, does not mean he is not extremely useful and intelligent to our cause.”

“Urgh…” Sherlock buries his head against the cushions. He hates it when Mummy’s right. Still. _Mycroft_. “How do we know he won’t betray us in the future?”

Mummy’s smiles are like the glint of a blade just as it pierces the heart, bottled up and spread across her lips. A fleeting moment. Rare and precious. “Sentiment, sweetie.”

Sherlock frowns. “I find it hard to believe that he would have an attachment to this when he isn’t one of us.”

“He may not participate in our hunts,” Mummy stands, measuring the scarlet scarf against Sherlock’s neck, “but he tried it the first time, without complaining once. He’s kept his opinion to himself ever since.”

Sherlock keeps the frown.

“Besides,” she laughs, “don’t you ever wonder where your father went?”

0

“…You have the most fascinating marks.”

John nearly slips into the faucet and turns an interesting shade of pink as he both maneuvers the shower curtain to protect his modesty and raises his other hand in self-defense. A socially-conditioned response to hide his marks. A military response (perhaps even deeper, possibly childhood trauma) against possible threats.

“ _What_ are you doing, Sherlock?! I’m taking a shower!”

“Obviously.”

“S-so,” ah, so the blush extends down to John’s neck too, “get o-out!”

“Why?”

“B-because t-this isn’t w-what people do! Now, _out!_ ”

Before Sherlock can argue, John pushes him out the door and locks it.

Honestly. Why must John cling so tightly to such boring socially dictated decorum? Doesn’t he realize what an opportunity this is?

Sherlock’s never seen marks like John’s before. The way the water fell over the etched glass shards around John’s shoulder, like tears of glass-coloured blood, and the way water fell over the ooze of black on John’s heart makes Sherlock want to file every detail into his mind palace. Why shards on his shoulder? What does John’s bullet wound have to do with his apparent sins? The marks on John’s hands are easy. All that red ribbon. Clearly guilt over the patients John couldn’t save. Possibly a reference to strings of fate or chains of responsibility.

And the heart. _Oh_ , that heart. Covered over with a _black hole_. Hardly the most aesthetically pleasing image for a typical audience but Sherlock has never seen anything more magnificent. No painter could capture the void of black there, the way that black seems to draw light in, and destroy it. No painting could capture the way the edges of that hole fade over, like wispy clouds, trying to grab at the rest of John’s skin, trailing down his abdomen and up to his collarbone.

What sin could possibly paint John with such greedy imagery? Typically, humans have flowers or dolphins or trees or other silly innocent things to hide their true selves but not John. Even in his sins, John proves to be so much more. What would Sherlock have to do to make more marks like that appear?

Ah, Sherlock smiles, he hasn’t felt this alive since he first used his scalpel.

0

Mycroft gets his first marks after that Carl Powers incident and Sherlock wishes that Mummy didn’t tell him that family is off limits for the hunt. Oh, if he could cut off Mycroft’s arm, memorize those marks and figure out a way to get marks of his own…

“What did you do to get that?”

Mycroft’s eye twitches, as it always does when Sherlock annoys him. But his hands tighten on the umbrella he insists on carrying around with him (probably to whack people with, at school. Another part of Sherlock wonders if Mycroft has concealed a knife in that umbrella, in case Sherlock ever decides to disobey Mummy’s orders.) “Didn’t Mummy teach you to respect social cues?”

“Why bother? You know what I am. I don’t need to play to your sympathies. Now answer the question or I might stab you.”

At this point, Mycroft doesn’t bother acting frightened, even if he pauses too long when he looks at Mummy and Sherlock at times. “This may come at a surprise to you, dear brother, but marks appear when people _commit sins—_ ”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you,” Sherlock scowls.

“—though why you and Mummy are not _entirely_ covered in marks escapes me. Perhaps it’s a chemical defect of the brain…”

Sherlock’s hands tighten over the scalpel in his pocket.

“…or superior intellect. Lord knows Mummy’s mind is lightyears ahead of any scientist on the planet.”

“Hm,” Sherlock narrows his eyes, “and what great sin have _you_ committed to get such a mark on your forearms? Did you steal something? Spill ink on your clothes?”

“Nothing so serious,” Mycroft doesn’t roll his sleeves down. (Later, though, Mycroft will wear long-sleeved shirts, even in the summertime. But not in this moment. This moment would be showing weakness.)

The marks are laughable. Little colourful wrapped candies bunched together in the shape of a hand. Toffees—the only kind of sweets that Sherlock can stomach eating, unlike Mycroft with his sweet tooth. The toffees gather in a tiny hand-shape. Rushed, like they will fall apart, judging from the spacing of the toffees.

Sherlock recalls his own insistence that Carl Powers was murdered and the way Mycroft slapped Sherlock’s hand away in disdain. It doesn’t make _sense_. “Why would you feel guilty about that?”

Mycroft looks away. He does not speak for a long time, but when he does, Sherlock wonders who has replaced him.

“You’re my brother.”

Biologically speaking, yes, though Sherlock holds no particular attachment to the title.

“Illogical or not,” Mycroft continues slowly, “I should have handled the situation more logically. It’s my job to be a good example for you to emulate.”

“…How on earth is that a sin? You’ve done, theoretically, worse. You’ve killed—”

“Yes, well, he served his use, didn’t he?” Mycroft says coldly, turning back to his books in a clear dismissal.

Normally, Sherlock would pester Mycroft further but one look at his forearms, those toffees, and Sherlock’s lip curls up in disgust.

He storms out the room. He’ll figure out these marks himself.

0

John’s files are inadequate. Sherlock wants to hunt down the physician who recorded John’s marks and skin them for such shoddy paperwork.

Governments require all marks to be recorded for a reason, as if there may be a way to quantify marks, to know what sins they represent, if a record is kept. It’s a wild hope, as if knowing who has what marks and ‘why’ may reveal things about the patient’s character. A very unreliable science, but one that Sherlock will unlock someday, nonetheless. _Still_ , if the government is going to bother recording this information down, they should be more _accurate_.

Instead, the information is hardly quantifiable. No notes on how far the marks span. Nothing on exact time that the marks were thought to appear. Only speculation and purple prose about how ugly John’s marks are.

Sherlock tears that page apart.

John’s marks are hardly _ugly_. If anything, they show the truth of who John really is. Sherlock wants to know why, why does John have such macabre marks to represent his sins when the rest of stupid humanity bears innocent-looking marks. He wants to know what John felt (can it be quantified), he wants to know when and how each mark appeared. Did they hurt, as all marks do, like knives carving the image into skin? Or did they feel like mocking angel kisses, ironic against the macabre image?

The only useful thing Sherlock can find in the files are photographs of each of John’s marks and approximate dates that John came to the physician to have the marks checked.

But then Sherlock sees the photos… and _oh_ , Sherlock’s eyes dilate in glee.

 _Age 5,_ the back of the photo reads, _scars on the heart_. The word ‘scar’ could hardly be accurate. The marks are twisted and rugged, like claw marks trying to tear out little John’s chest.

 _Age 6,_ the back of this photo reads, _dripping red lines._ Indeed, the claw marks have become vivid red rubies, glinting against skin.

 _Age 7,_ this photo reads, _real life representation of a human heart._ Sherlock laughs at this. Amazing. What happened to John to make his mark into a literal organ? The little boy in this photograph looks as if the skin has been grafted from his chest to reveal the pumping, _scarred,_ organ underneath. He looks like a delicious sewn-up mix of the living and the dead.

This progression of more and more grotesque markings on John’s chest… perhaps a sign of abuse? Or of John becoming like him and Mummy…?

The numbers continue. _Age 8, age 9, age, 10, 11,_ and so on. The photo-real-red heart of a mark on John’s chest becomes deeper and deeper red. Impossibly red, as bright as ripe cherries before they rot, as vivid as fresh blood just before it sinks deep into the snow.

Then John turns 13 and that sickening deep red gets its first hint of black.

Such a beautiful black (hardly deserving of the term ‘stain’) that wraps its way around John’s red heart like thirsty black thorns, searching for their rose. They look like surgical stitches. They look like threads trying to keep John’s heart from falling apart.

All the doctor’s notes say about the change is ‘family issues.’ Some inquiries were sent about the safety of John’s home and a few people came by to check up on John. But all they wrote was that John’s family was ‘normal.’ That John was just naturally quiet.

Fools.

John clearly exhibits traces of past child abuse, even now. The way he tenses at shouting. The way he looks at the ground when there’s a conflict he can’t change. Being a soldier gives him an excuse for these behavior patterns. If anything, going to war was like going back to a familiar version of home to John… except he could _do_ something, instead of clenching his fists and staring at his shoes.

Sherlock starts to laugh. The more he looks at John, the more he realizes how much they have in common. Restless with standing still. They both feel alive around death. Distasteful fathers.

George Watson never died, unlike Herman Holmes. John lived under that man’s roof for nearly two decades, his heart growing steadily darker and darker in black thorns until not a drop of red was left. What did John do to fight back? What was his sin towards his father?

The marks on John’s hands and shoulder are easy enough to crack. Remnants of being a soldier and doctor. But in combination with his black heart mark, Sherlock wonders if John used those occupations as a front for the hunt, just as Sherlock and Mummy use their own occupations.

He can picture it now, John shooting humans on the battlefield with a smile. John putting troublesome patients to sleep forever. Sherlock standing by his side.

The grin he sees reflected in the mirror looks so much like a wolf’s that Sherlock scowls back.

No need to be hasty. He’s getting carried away in his discovery. There’s no evidence to back his speculations. Not yet.

Find evidence that John is like him and Mummy first. Then he can confront him. Then he can ask John how he has such beautiful marks.

0

Some people have tried to create their own marks, despite the connotations of sin. Sherlock reads accounts of humans who have tried branding, tattooing, piercing with acid on their skin. Most accounts lead to injury or death. The end results never look as beautiful as the real thing. Truly a series of idiots never learning their lesson.

But sometimes the marks appear after such acts, never as vivid as marks that appear naturally over the course of one’s life. But their colours are muted, like the sun stole their life.

Sherlock isn’t fool enough to try the same thing. Not even for faded marks. No, he wants vivid colours as striking as Mummy’s butterflies.

Besides. There’s one way that guarantees him marks like hers.

He holds a knife to his own wrist, as if offering himself to a false god. If he could feel sentiment, he might liken the reflection staring back at him as a washed-out painting with colours bleaching out into the mirror world.

The blade feels cold against his skin. Well, no need to delay. One hard press should do it—

But Mummy slamming the door open and slapping the knife away ruins his plans.

“What—”

“ _Don’t_ question me, Sherlock Holmes,” Mummy presses his wrists against the shower rack, hard enough to snap. “How _dare_ you.” She doesn’t yell. Mummy seldom does. But the quiet slithering _threat_ interlocking with her words feels worse than mundane rage. “Do you realize what would have happened if you had made a mistake?”

Sherlock snarls, “I don’t _make_ mistakes, I—”

“But you could have. Tell me, Sherlock Holmes, can you calculate how many of units of pain a cut to the wrists would cause? Can you find the computations that will create the perfect units of pain so that you _won’t_ accidentally cut deeper into your skin from the mere _shock_ of such pain? You… you might be brilliant, but your instances of stupidity astound me.”

He wrenches his hands away from her steel grip. “I could have done it!” How dare she, how dare she doubt his abilities when they are supposed to be the _same_ —? “ _You_ did, after all!”

“I did,” she echoes, more imposing than any imagining of a god, “… and that was my mistake.”

For the first time in his life, Sherlock does not know what to say.

Silently, Mummy removes her mittens, the yarn clinging to her skin as if to keep her secrets. Red butterfly markings peek out, their hues screaming for attention.

“I’m brilliant, just like you. And like you, I was curious. And I was bored. The same responses from the game. The same variables. Humans grow predictable. I wanted to see if I was predictable too…” Mummy laughs, soft and dark. “These marks appeared because I very nearly died. I would have, too, if my collapse hadn’t knocked the door open and alerted my neighbours.”

“But… why didn’t you inform me of this before, it _worked_ , you’re—”

“Marked. Yes, but I was _marked_. I was the object. Passive. That’s not what you want, sweetie. No, what you want, is to _choose_ the mark. Choose _when_ and _what_.”

She crouches down and picks up the fallen knife.

“ _Calculate_ your end result.”

Sherlock’s eyes widen and Mummy hands him the knife.

“Do not let the mark decide for you.”

0

But when Soo Lin dies, John mourns.

“I don’t understand,” Sherlock snaps after the third day of John moping around the house. The silence, post-first-meeting-John, is insufferable, like a sound of its own screeching into his spinal cord. “She was a stranger. You didn’t even kill her, and yet you’ve been wearing your jumpers inside out, you’ve overloaded on tea, and you’ve reloaded that Browning over two hundred times in the last few days! Are you upset that her death wasn’t efficient?”

Something clatters on the ground. Likely mugs, dirty and left over on the table, knocked over from John jerking up in his seat.

“So I’m right,” Sherlock smirks, looking up, “You—”

He stops, entranced by the look on John’s face. The type of look that feels like swallowing broken glass, like Mummy’s disappointed stares and the frustration of dropping a scalpel too soon. Sherlock’s hand reaches out before he knows what he’s doing.

“ _What._ The. _Hell_. Sherlock?” John hisses before Sherlock can touch his cheek.

Sherlock freezes. “John—”

“ _Her death wasn’t efficient?!_ Do you _know_ what that sounds like?! Christ, Sherlock! I know you think people are idiots and you probably equate us all with insects but you can’t just classify people’s deaths in terms of how boring or interesting or _useful_ they are! Death is death. It’s sad and it’s awful, because no one can come back from that! _Of course, I’m upset!_ ”

“I don’t… I thought…”

“ _What_ , Sherlock, _what_ did you think?!”

 _That you were like me_ , he wants to say. But he doesn’t. He can’t. The anger in John’s eyes binds him there, tighter than any chain.

“…Nothing… Nothing at all,” he lies, tasting bitter iron on his tongue.

The game. He should just go back to playing the game—

John’s face twists into something that makes Sherlock want to be human, _normal_ , because then maybe he’d understand—

“I need to go,” he says, and before John can say anything, the door slams shut as if someone dropped a knife onto of his beating heart.

But no. There’s no knife there. Sherlock’s heart still beats. Still beats. Only—

There’s something there that wasn’t before. Or maybe it had always been there. If only Sherlock could tear it out.

0

The human in the chair gurgles the life in their eyes fades to dull clouded glass.

Sherlock chucks the cleaver down again, and _again_ , grunting at the heavy snapping of bone and meat. Blood splatters and claws at his cheeks and neck in desperate revenge but still Sherlock chucks away at each portion of meat and bond, and still, _still_ , no sinful marks.

Still clean as a newborn babe.

When the third specimen has been mutilated beyond repair, Sherlock rolls in the next one and looks deep into its frightened eyes.

 _This will mark me,_ he thinks.

It doesn’t, it _doesn’t—clunk!—_ it doesn’t—clunk!—stay—clunk!—it just washes off—clunk!—his hands—clunk!—as if it was never there at all.

0

_John just doesn’t make sense._

Papers litter the floor. Photos, file folders, records, old assignments. _Age 14, John Hamish Watson is a quiet boy who should socialize more with his peers,_ reads one, _and would better integrate in society if he covered his marks_. No, no, no, it just doesn’t make sense!

All these marks, the jumpers, his _walk_ , John _should_ , John _has_ to be, one of them, one of _us_ , he has to, he has to—

The lamp falls over as Sherlock stumbles back, knocking over a pile of photos and they spill out. All of John’s marks, photographed and immortalized for all the world to see. All of John’s sins.

Sherlock finds himself tearing them apart like a hungry hyena descending on scraps. No. _No_. No doctor or psychiatrist or stranger can ever see John’s marks. No one is worthy. They don’t see how beautiful John’s marks are, how dark his sins must have been to mark him this way. No. Only Sherlock knows, only Sherlock—

A ping from Sherlock’s mobile has him diving for it. “John?!” He checks the message, his damn heart hammering, choking, him.

 _Mycroft,_ Sherlock snarls. And his brother’s message has him seeing red.

[ _Perhaps, dear brother, you don’t know the good doctor as much as you think_.]

Sherlock slams the phone against the floorboards. “How dare you?!” he shouts, at the walls, at the cameras Mycroft surely has monitoring him, “You outsider! You know _nothing_ about me, or Mummy, or _John_ , we…! We…”

The image of John’s horrified face, John’s tears, comes to mind and… Sherlock goes cold.

What if, this whole time, he’s been wrong? Blind to a new interesting specimen? What if John is… normal? Disgustingly normal? Enough for the Hunt… Enough for Mummy to find him and then… then…!

“Sherlock, stop that! You’re hurting yourself!”

The world reorients itself to a comfy looking jumper.

 “…John?” Sherlock blinks slowly. “You… left.” Surely this is a drug-induced hallucination though Sherlock doesn’t remember partaking in anything. Or maybe this is another one of the Johns he conjured up in his head to bounce off deductions…

“Well, obviously, I came back!” John scowls, grabbing Sherlock’s hand (so warm) and grimacing at the blood caught in Sherlock’s nails. “God, Sherlock, this better not get infected, let me get some bandages—”

“…Why?”

“—and rubbing alcohol so you don’t get hepatitis, you twat.”

“Why did you come back?”

John stops, eyes wide and glossy before his face softens in a way that Sherlock has seen specimens look at their spouses before Sherlock takes them for the hunt, the way specimens look when they laugh for no reason, as if _existing_ is enough of a property to induce such raw sentiment.

“You’re an idiot,” John says softly, “but I’m an idiot too. I _know_ you. I know you don’t get this… this emotion stuff. Hell, sometimes I don’t either. But… I should have explained it better. Calmer. I just, sometimes, I forget that you don’t always feel the same things that I do and I shouldn’t blame you for it… Just get you to understand instead, if I can. I just… I wish you could feel a bit more for the strangers around you.”

Sherlock just… stares.

“Don’t get me wrong,” John huffs, “I’m still mad at you and it’s not right to talk about death in terms of efficiency, but I shouldn’t have stormed out like that. I’m sorry.”

Illogical. “I don’t understand, why…?” According to the Game, Sherlock broke the rules of decorum. This is John’s cue to walk away like everyone else, to become another specimen. Nothing. Everything.

“I means I _care_ , that’s all. Now give me your hand,” John grumbles, ducking down to hide the pink in his cheeks.

Numbly, Sherlock watches John wrap bandages around his hands. John scowls and tuts but his touch is warm and gentle, speaking a language that Sherlock has no dictionary, no code, for. And yet every action of John’s speaks soldier and sinner and now Sherlock can see the lines on John’s face that read _healer_ and _doctor_ and something too human beyond any specimen or murderer that Sherlock has ever seen.

It… doesn’t make sense, and Sherlock wants more of it.

0

The smell of burnt meat clings to the air, oozing into every creature’s breath, into the deepest parts of the walls and floorboards when Mycroft storms through the doors.

“You need to stop this immediately!” Mycroft points his umbrella at the blood sinking into the ceiling. “Do you have any idea how _reckless_ you’re acting?!”

Sherlock huffs, turning his attention to the flames devouring blackened limbs instead. Even the dead get marks. Crumbling, fragile ash marks that fade to dust.

“Seventy-three people have been reported missing around our area, of varying ages and genders. The police haven’t found a connection yet, but even your _specimens_ can piece two and two together. They _will_ discover that you have a connection to this and then our entire family will be put in danger!”

“Then we’ll move. Or I’ll kill them as well,” Sherlock says coolly, eying his tools carefully. They should be washed and sanitized as soon as the last of the specimens have deteriorated to pure ash. Mummy always says that they should practice proper procedure during the hunt.

Mycroft slams his umbrella against the rusty oven and the fire sparks out of the iron gate, like the dead want to crawl out.

Sherlock scoffs. “Are you finished?”

“Murdering even a thousand more _specimens_ won’t get you any marks,” Mycroft hisses.

“Then I’ll simply kill a thousand more—”

“—And you’ll _still_ be markless, _innocent_ , how laughable, you should be drowning in them, but if biology won’t mark you now, it will _never mark you_ Sherlock, and it’s time you’ve accepted it!”

The umbrella collapses on the ground as Sherlock presses his knife against Mycroft’s throat. He’s tempted to cut a line, just one scar, enough to make Mycroft bleed, but Mummy would never let him. Instead, he watches with satisfaction as all colour slips from Mycroft’s skin.

“Go ahead,” Mycroft spits out, “butcher me. I would _love_ to hear how you’d justify my untimely death to Mummy. Go on.”

The knife presses closer.

“You know _nothing_ about Mummy. I’m just like her. I don’t care if you die, Mycroft, why should Mummy?”

Stupid, annoying Mycroft, instead of sniveling or sobbing, laughs. “Oh brother, mine, for someone so _intelligent,_ you are so very blind. Why do you think you want marks so badly? Do you want the sin to be immortalized? Is it vanity? Or do you want to be, dare I say it, _human?_ ”

Sherlock feels so much _red_ roaring in his veins that before he knows it, Mycroft is on the ground with a bloodied nose, in laughter slow and dark.

“Don’t you ever wonder why marks for sins are so beautiful, Sherlock?” _Shut up,_ he thinks, _shut up, shut up, shut up,_ “They’ll seduce you, brother. Seduce and destroy you!”

The next punch leaves Mycroft unconscious against the dried blood splatters of all of Sherlock’s specimens.

0

Mycroft helps himself, uninvited, to the cold tea that John always leaves out for Sherlock. “Hm,” Mycroft wrinkled his nose, “could use more sugar.”

“That’s because it’s for _me_ , you thief. Give it here!”

“Oh please. You hardly touch anything John makes you unless he nags. What does one out of a hundred untouched cups of tea matter?”

But it does. These cups are yet another tick on the growing list of evidence towards John’s extraordinary character. They shouldn’t be defiled by an outsider’s hands, by _Mycroft’s_ clammy, disgusting hands.

Mycroft pushes the cup towards him. “Fine, fine. Take it. But next time, do try and drink it when it’s made.”

“…I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t need to. The look on your face was telling enough.”

“I do not have a ‘ _look’—_ ”

“Tell that to the Hunt.”

Before Sherlock can retort, John wanders back into the sitting room. “Oh! Mycroft.” His face brightens into _that_ smile, the one that Sherlock usually receives after a good case or deduction, after cleaning the dishes on rare occasions. _Sherlock’s_ smile. “Did you need me for something?”

Sherlock nearly drops his cup. “What would Mycroft need _you_ for?”

John pauses, shoulders stiff. _Hurt_ , Sherlock’s mind whispers, before John shrugs and mutters, “Other people do enjoy having me around for more than being a sounding board, you know…”

Illogical. Nonsense. John is so much more than a mere sounding board. He’s a puzzle, a contradiction that Sherlock still can’t understand with the loveliest marks Sherlock’s ever seen.

Unexpectedly, Mycroft stands up and goes to John’s side. An ugly pain rips into Sherlock’s chest, like scalpels digging in his ribs from the inside, the closer Mycroft gets to John. “No need to take what my brother says seriously, John. He’s merely being himself again. Shall we go for our weekly brunch?”

The ugly pain turns cold and brittle, like the need to Hunt, but more intense. “ _Brunch?_ ”

John frowns. “Um. Yeah. That’s what we do every Sunday. Well, first Mycroft kidnapped me and took me to some weird cafes but now we actually meet _voluntarily_ ,” John glares at Mycroft, “for brunch. Instead of the whole kidnapping thing.”

“Oh _really_.”

“…I thought you knew? If you need me for a case, we can always take a raincheck or—”

“Nonsense, John. My brother monopolizes far too much of your time. We should get going. The reservation’s at eleven.”

“Reservation?!” John exclaims just as Mycroft puts his hand on John’s back and Sherlock has the urge to rip him apart, Mummy’s orders be damned, “When are we going to just eat at the local pub like normal blokes?!”

“Hm, yes,” Mycroft muses just as Sherlock’s hand twitches for a weapon, “ _normal_ does have its appeal…”

“Mycroft, I am not a lab rat, please stop saying things like that—Sherlock?” John pauses, walking over to put his hand on Sherlock’s forehead. Unexpectedly, Sherlock drops the scalpel in his pocket back down. “Are you alright? You look… pale. Tired. Do you have a fever? Should I stay?”

 _Yes_ , he doesn’t say, _stay forever. Let me study you. Let me keep you. Not dead, of course, never you. Just gloriously alive and mine_.

“I’m fine,” he lies.

“Oh, then—”

“We should go,” Mycroft puts his hand on John’s shoulder again and Sherlock _hates him, hates him,_ there is no word to describe the hate. “There’s limited time before they stop serving the breakfast menu. My brother will be fine without you… won’t he?”

They lock eyes, unspoken messages between them. _I will tell him what you are,_ Mycroft’s eyes say and for a moment, Sherlock imagines John walking away in disgust. Imagines John sitting on Mummy’s table for the Hunt and it. Is. Unacceptable.

Sherlock steps back. “Of course, I have some experiments on human femurs to look at today.”

John still lingers, unsure, and Sherlock wants to pull him deeper into 221B. Away from the Game. Away from Mycroft and all the filthy human beings that could touch him.

“Alright. But call me if you feel worse,” John whispers.

When John walks away with Mycroft, smiling and joking, the scalpel in Sherlock’s grip feels like a part of his fingers.

0

University is like walking into a zoo’s exhibit and being locked in without a key. People stare and whisper when Sherlock speaks out in class. They call him weird. Freak. Psychopath. Sociopath. Serial killer. He goes from observing specimens from the comfort of Mummy’s homeschooling to being the observed, the exhibit.

Logically, he knows that this is how society singles out the outliers from the norm. This is how society feels superior, content that they are the norm and not the outliers. But he can’t help but smirk and think that deep down, a small instinctual part of these specimens, recognizes his true nature. A small part of them fears him.

For that reason, he doesn’t make much effort to fit in with the Game of norms.

Let them know what he is. Perhaps that will trigger a mark. Perhaps being caught is what he needs. But he can’t be caught in a careless mistake. No. His capture should be as brilliant as he is. Someone worthy should do it.

But the more he stands out, the more isolated he becomes. Everyone is too stupid. Too slow. Too much like sheep, following the herd.

He’s alone.

Sherlock has the urge to claw his face off, to trace his own marks in his skin. Alone. No. He’s not alone. He has Mummy. She’s just like him—

But she has marks. He doesn’t.

He’s alone, shut up, aloneshutupaloneaLONeEEeeee—

“Careless of you,” he remembers Mycroft saying during one of his lucid moments. “Doing drugs. One might think you were human. Was this another attempt at getting a mark?”

Shutupshutupshutup—

“Hm. Pity. Well, rehab should sort you out in a few months. I wouldn’t return home in a while, brother. Mummy is not pleased.”

Alone.

0

He used to think John was playing the Game. But now, as Sherlock reviews every moment he’s observed with John, he realizes that John genuinely cares about other specimens. John isn’t playing at all. Which means John isn’t Alone like Sherlock or Mummy are.

John can walk away anytime.

“Sherlock?”

He pauses in his violin playing.

“Are you alright?”

Sherlock doesn’t turn around. “Completely.”

A snort. “Right. Like I believe that. You’ve been cross ever since Mycroft came to visit. I’ll never understand why you dislike him so much…”

“Why? Because he’s so perfectly normal?” Sherlock spits out.

“Because he cares about you,” John says instead.

Sherlock turns around, ready to spout out a speech about love and sentiment being chemical illusions when he sees the mark on John’s neck, peeking just out of his fluffy jumper.

“When did you get that?”

For a moment, John blinks in confusion before he flushes and covers the mark with his hand. “Oh. It’s nothing. Just a recent accident, really. Honestly, it happens all the time with my marks.”

_All the time…?_

“Elaborate. For research purposes.”

“Um,” John stares at a stain on the wall for several seconds. “Well. Alright.” He nods, looking determined, looking like he’s ready to march into war. “I’m only telling this because I trust you. I don’t want you spreading this around to anyone else. You will _only_ use this information for research, right?”

Sherlock bristles. Like he would ever let other specimens know the most intimate parts of John. They wouldn’t appreciate him at all. “Of course.”

“Right.” John pauses. “Well.” He sits down, his limp acting up again. “I suppose if you were to name a sin for my marks… it would be failure. Guilt.”

Guilt. A concept that Sherlock is familiar with from his cases but has never truly felt. The closest thing to guilt he could feel might have been the time Mummy yelled at him in the bathroom for trying to create marks like hers…

“Ever since I can remember… my marks just… sort of… accumulate. Get darker. Messier. Uglier—”

“No.”

John blinks up at him, eyes wet. “What?”

“They’re not ugly. They’re captivating. Exquisite.”

John twitches, as if he wants to look away. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do,” Sherlock says softly.

John stares for so long that Sherlock almost forgets that they’re supposed to have a conversation at all. “Right.” John flushes. “My story. Well. Like I said, my marks… they just get messier. They expand when I feel make mistakes. When I fail to save someone. When I feel guilt.”

“…Every single time?”

John’s Adam’s apple bobs.

“Every single time,” he whispers.

Sherlock tries to imagine it. Every single mistake in one’s life, deepening one’s marks. A constant reminder of failure to be attain perfection. A constant reminder of beautifully drawn humanity.

If only Sherlock could put such a mark on John’s heart. Surgical tools could never trace such patterns of vivid colour, not even tattoo artists could.

Before he knows it, Sherlock’s tracing the jagged lines of glass-shard-marks that now shower up to John’s neck. Perhaps these glass-shard marks want to reach for John’s jugular and remind John of his morality. Perhaps this glass-shard marks will one day rain up to John’s face, his cheeks, his eyes, like upward tears that will trace jagged reminders over his skin.

“You first got this in Afghanistan, didn’t you?”

“…Yes,” John says in a hush. Breathing so deeply. “When I got shot. For Bill. But he died anyways.”

Sherlock leans in, wonders if he can breathe the marks in and he feels John tense, then relax, against him.

“And later…?”

“They got darker whenever I saw a corpse at a crime scene…”

“But not when you killed Hope.”

“No,” John says fiercely. “I don’t regret that. Not ever.”

“He _was_ a shoddy cab driver,” Sherlock chuckles, watching as John shivers when his laughs ghost his skin.

“And the most recent expansion to your neck?”

“When I punched a man for talking badly about you.”

Sherlock stills. Mind racing. “You punched a man.” He reviews the list of likely suspects who might be close enough to John to warrant such a reaction, who knows Sherlock. “Mycroft.”

John turns his face away and Sherlock doesn’t like the loss of eye contact. He reaches up and turns John’s head back, cradling John’s hair softly, wondering if he could ever dye this part of John’s skin to his liking.

“…What did he say, John?”

He lets his thumb settle by John’s ear, fascinated by the shape, by the tired lines under John’s eyes. Such caring and open eyes.

“… He said I shouldn’t stay with you. That I should move. Maybe work for him. He said that you’d turn on me one day… experiments, he mentioned.”

 _Ah_ , Sherlock thinks languidly. Suddenly John’s willingness to share his marks with Sherlock, when he’s normally close-lipped about the subject, makes more sense. John wants to prove Mycroft wrong. Sherlock knows he’ll be angry later at his brother, but for now, he revels in the growing warm high that John inspires in him the more he shares about his marks.

John feels like the day he got his first scalpel, like the day he first felt the thrill of the hunt. John feels like his violin and Mummy’s smiles when Sherlock finishes a clean kill. John feels like this and so much more that Sherlock can’t begin to articulate, but if he could, he would write libraries and libraries on the subject if possible.

Instead, he whispers, “You’re too perfect to experiment on,” and means it.

Instead, he leans in and kisses John’s marks, right on the neck and the shoulder and wrists and chest, and he falls with John, kissing every single mark.

0

The sun rises and sets as if nothing has changed and most of his classmates have moved onto their graduation by the time Sherlock is lucid enough to know where he is. No one questions why killings around his university have stopped. Likely Mycroft’s doing. But even if they had noticed, Sherlock would have been forgotten. Nothing. Everything he has ever done, his entire existence, erased after a few days to mere memories.

His lunch tray splatters on the ground as Sherlock stands up abruptly.

Mummy was right. He worried too much about being marked than _leaving_ his mark on others.

He won’t make the same mistake.

0

Lying on the floor with his arms wrapped possessively around John is the closest to at peace that Sherlock has ever felt. Not even the high after a successful hunt or the thrill of solving a case can compare. Even if his back will protest from lying on a hard floor for so long, Sherlock feels no need to move. Just lie there. Bask in John’s warmth.

His fingers continue tracing over the new red marks that Sherlock thoroughly bit into John’s skin. Jagged circular arches from his teeth. Red and purple bruises to show their intimacy. Sherlock leans down to kiss them again and frowns as he sees them starting to fade.

Quietly, John shifts in his sleep, muttering about surgeries.

Sherlock frowns.

John’s heart is too big. Every sin, every person, every mistake, leaves a subtle mark on John. Expands his marks.

Sherlock doesn’t want to be like everyone else. He wants to leave another permanent mark on John, something to prove and show that he _owned_ John once, possessed his body in the most intimate of ways. He wants to draw etchings on John’s skin that will never fade but he doesn’t want to use something as simple as his scalpels or knives. No.

He wants John to sin for him.

0

The doctors marvel at Sherlock’s quick recovery but Sherlock is very good at ignoring physical sensations like withdrawal when he puts his mind to the task. He focuses on his plan. On the new Hunt.

Within six months he’s let out of rehab and he quickly establishes a connection with Scotland Yard so he can solve cases, get closer to corpses. A few flirtations with Molly Hooper gains him access to the morgue so he can examine marks when he needs.

Meanwhile, he hunts.

He used to watch the specimens squirm or muffle their screams so he could focus more on the _process_ of killing. Now he gives them a choice. He’s watched the _Saw_ movies for research but he hasn’t seen anyone carry the scenario out in practice.

“You have thirty seconds before the chamber fills with poisonous gas. There are two buttons. The first one will open the doors to your cell. The second one will open the doors to your wife’s. You can only choose one. If you press both, your child at home will die. The same applies if you press none.”

He clinically watches specimens choose their own lives over loved ones. Watches the interesting marks form on their naked form. Hearts, usually. Sometimes angel wings. Boring repetitive images. Some specimens choose to save their loved ones. Pointless really, both die regardless. It wouldn’t do for Sherlock to let one go.

He forms countless scenarios like so, more creative and elaborate than the next, so he can write his observations about marks in his notebook.

When he catches himself smiling a glass cage’s reflection, he realizes that he enjoys it. The rush. The power to control when marks appear.

It makes him feel like an artist none can run away from.

0

The old methods of creating marks on his specimens, Sherlock throws them away. Nothing so crude should be used on John. No, Sherlock doesn’t want to emotionally destroy John… he just wants John desperate enough to sin for him. After all, didn’t John kill a man for Sherlock once with no regrets? Sherlock just needs to push… push John to do something for him that he would regret...

John turns in his sleep and groans, slowly opening his eyes. Sherlock can count every eyelash. “Oh…” John blinks at him and then slowly smiles so wide that Sherlock can’t look away, “Morning.”

The words are so simple. So unnecessarily simple and yet they hold a chord of tenderness that Sherlock has never heard directed towards him before.

 _It’s love_ , a viciously pleased and hungry part of him whispers, _John loves you._

Sherlock smiles back.

0

Rumours spread throughout London, then England. Rumours about a killer who wants to create marks on your skin. A killer who will make you choose between yourself and those you love most.

The Marker, some call him. A silly name.

The Devil, others say. So very typical.

The Artist, he hears a homeless woman whisper. And that’s the name that sticks.

Sherlock holds the scalpel in his hand that night and imagines it as a bloodied paintbrush.

He starts drawing detailed sketches of his specimen’s bodies pre and post marking.

0

If there’s one thing that Sherlock has learned from observing specimens, it’s this: Love is a vicious motivator. Now that Sherlock knows that John loves him, he only has to push that love to its vicious limits.

Jealously, he’s told, works wonderfully for violent and spontaneous acts of crimes. So, he flirts. Molly Hooper’s eyes go wide when he returns her awkward advances in front of John. Sally looks confused and walks away. Even Lestrade treats his flirtations as more of an awkward joke. But strangers eat it up and invite Sherlock to bed, while Sherlock only implies a yes without ever truly consenting.

All this in front of John. Waiting.

John’s reactions are delicious at first. Clenching of the jaw. Tightened fists. Stiff soldier stance. Wary eyes. But he never acts on his jealously. He grins when he thinks Sherlock needs him to and he carries his emotions deep inside. Locked up tight.

 _Give it time_ , Sherlock thinks.

But Mycroft comes for weekly brunch, takes one look at John, and stares at Sherlock in silent judgment. He whisks John away, without a word, and Sherlock spends the next few hours destroying the flat and nearly tearing out his hair before John returns with a smug Mycroft.

 _What are you telling him_ , Sherlock wants to demand. But he can’t. Because John is so normal and moral and good. _What poison are you feeding into his ears?_

Mycroft glances at a stony-faced John, cleaning up Sherlock’s mess.

 _Nothing but the truth_ , he imagines Mycroft saying, and suddenly, Sherlock has the irrational thought of using a fire poker to bludgeon Mycroft to death.

“Honestly, John,” Mycroft says instead, “you’re wasted on my brother. I really do recommend that you come work for me instead before he tires of you.”

“Never,” Sherlock spits out.

John only cleans in angry silence.

0

Sometimes, Mycroft visits. He never says anything anymore. Only stares at Sherlock as if he possesses the eyes of judgement, as if he could put Sherlock into the deepest depths of hell if he could.

But he doesn’t. He never does.

On the days he visits, sometimes Sherlock stares back.

“I always assumed caring was a disadvantage. Seems a waste of resources, to care about another being’s health and _feelings_ as if they were your own. Thank you for the proof.”

Mycroft never fails to storm out after those comments.

0

“…I love you, you know…” John says quietly, when they lie together in the dark. He says it so casually yet gently that Sherlock might have confused his words for a slight breeze.

Sherlock doesn’t reply.

John’s hand lightly touches his. “It’s alright. If you don’t feel the same. I just… You’re _it_ , Sherlock. I _love_ you. I just… want you to know that. No matter what happens. If you wanted to let me go because there’s someone else or the Work or—”

Sherlock shuts him up with a devouring kiss.

0

What Sherlock knows about Mycroft:

  * His brother has a strange sentimental attachment for him and Mummy. He will never betray them to the authorities. And yet, with one order, Mycroft could easily expose them to the government and keep them locked up for good. Or even sentenced to death and no one would ever know.  

  * Part of Mycroft has always been afraid of Sherlock and that part has only grown throughout the years.



What Sherlock doesn’t know about Mycroft:

  * Sentiment can only carry a ‘normal’ person so far.



0

He considers calling Mummy about his dilemma but he hasn’t talked to her since his stint in rehab years ago. Besides, he doesn’t trust Mummy to see the same value in John as he does. Logically, he knows he should proceed in the plan to mark John, to motivate John to sin for him but the right circumstances simply haven’t appeared yet.  

John wanted to watch a Bond film and Sherlock simply indulges him. After all, John hasn’t asked for a action marathon in weeks…

It’s been fifteen minutes since John went to the loo. Odd. John typically spends about eight to nine minutes there before a film. John _has_ been tired lately. Silent and stiff. His limp has returned almost forty-five percent of the time now…

Sherlock stills. Suppose that John is ill… or has collapsed on the bathroom floor? What if John has had a panic attack? Or even…?

Instantly, Sherlock races up the stairs. “John!” He imagines John’s body so still against the bathroom tiles and it is unspeakable, “ _John!_ Are you alright? Where are you,” he passes the bedroom door and—

“…John?”

No. It can’t be.

There, sitting with his head in his hands and a gun on his lap, is John.

Sherlock’s notebook, with every illustration of his new Hunt, lies half open on the floor.

0

Mycroft only has to whisper, “You’re a brave man, John, you deserve better.”

Mycroft only has to shake his head and say, “Sherlock bores too easily of people… but it’s for the best, he has too many dangerous secrets.”

Mycroft only has to reach for his hand and say, “I say this for your own safety… Please. Leave him,” and John doubts.

He hates that he doubts but he does and he does and _he doesn’t want to_ because Sherlock is a good man. He believes that. He lives on that. Sherlock is a good man and Sherlock gave him a reason to live so            w h  y         i s         t h   e r e      c  O  r s P es     d r A  wn     i N     h i  S        n O te  B oO  k         a  s       I F      h e        W  a     s        t h    e        A   r T   i S    t   nononononononooNO—

The gun shifts into his hand as if it never left.

0

“John,” Sherlock breathes, just as John points the gun at him. “Please.”

Bloodshot eyes, so raw as if someone has peeled off the white, stare angrily back. “Fucking _what_ is this, Sherlock?!”

“John,” Sherlock tries again, “I didn’t draw those—”

“Bullshit, Sherlock! I may not be as _brilliant_ as you but I _know_ your handwriting, your art style! It’s yours! You drew this! And… and the _photos—_ ”

Sherlock frowns. “I don’t recall photos… unless… _Mycroft_. He sent that to you. How did he…?”

“It doesn’t matter. None of that fucking matters because you’re going to be locked up for a long time and I… I…”

“John,” Sherlock shakes his head, “Please. Think about this. You can’t shoot me. You—You love me.”

“Shut up,” John sobs, and at the sight of John’s tears, Sherlock feels the most horrible pain in his chest, “just _shut up_ , you don’t even know what love is!”

Sherlock tries to answer, he does. But the pain. It reaches into his chest, as if rearranging his insides with nothing but forks and knives. When he sees John cry, he would do anything to make it stop.

“John—”

“Just keep quiet. I don’t want to hear it, I’ve already called the Yard,” John’s hands shake, “and I… I…” John nearly drops the gun. “What… What’s that on your face…?”

Sherlock shifts, just as stunned as John, when he catches sight of his reflection in the mirror. There, written on his face, and spreading to every inch of his skin, are the inked words of _John Watson, John Watson_ , written over and over again as if it were a script in a journal entry.

Awed and trembling, Sherlock touches the marks on his face.

“I love you,” he whispers.

And this time, John really does drop his gun.

Sirens echo in the distance.

Sherlock laughs and laughs, stumbling so he can hold John close to him. “I love you, I love you, I _love_ you—”

A gunshot fires.

Blood bleeds down the letters of John Watson’s name.

0

A memory:

“You never take those off, do you?” John looks at the worn mitts on Sherlock’s hands.

“Old habit. Mummy told me not to take them all,” Sherlock holds John closer to him.

“What, even in bed?”

“Even in bed.”

Silence.

“I understand. It’s hard sometimes. Looking at marks. Some days, I can’t bear to look at mine. I wish they were gone.”

“ _No_.”

“What?”

“Never wish for that. Your marks are beautiful. _You_ are beautiful.”

“I, um, I just, what? Y-you! W-well, I’m sure, you probably have much more beautiful marks than I do!”

“…I don’t.”

“…Don’t what?”

“Have marks.”

“…Oh.”

Tense silence.

“Don’t wish to be markless, John.”

Hesitation. Just a breath. And then—

“Alright,” John kisses his brow. “Alright…”

0

Mycroft waits at the pub for ten more minutes. He considers checking the CCTV again, just in case. But just before the football game ends on the telly, John Watson walks through the door looking like a pale ghost of himself.

“John,” he stops himself from putting a hand on the good doctor’s shoulders. John doesn’t appreciate physical contact anymore. Understandable, but in time, Mycroft hopes to correct that ailment.

“I’ve have some water,” he says instead. A good choice, considering the alcoholism that runs in the Watson family, but also worrying because of how thin John is.

They sit in silence, listening to the hustle and bustle of mundane people around them. Strange, how silent their conversations are now that Sherlock is gone.

“…H-how…. How could you stand it?” John says finally, “Knowing what he did? Loving him?”

“I nearly didn’t. But I thought of Mummy,” John doesn’t need to know about Mummy’s pastimes, “and what it would do to her if he was caught, so I kept silent. And part of me… does care. Yes.”

“…I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like… If it were Harry, I’m not sure if I could… I just don’t know how to bear it.”

“‘Be the good son’,” Mycroft parrots. “You and I know that phrase all too well.”

John huffs. A half chuckle. Mycroft will take that as his win. “Or ‘be the good soldier.’ ‘The good doctor.’ I… I’m not sure if I can do this.”

Mycroft frowns. “Yes. He’s been insistent that you should visit. You have no obligation to. I can handle it.”

“No. No. Like you said… Part of me _does_ care. Even if I don’t want to. I’ll… I’ll see him. I just don’t…”

“I will accompany you, as always.”

Mycroft knows how John hates to ask for help. But that’s acceptable. Mycroft will offer it before John can even think to ask.

“…There’s one thing I don’t understand. All that evidence, sitting in your desk… I know you didn’t report him because of your mother but… _why send it to me_?”

Mycroft just looks at John, long and patient.

“Oh… _Oh_.” John looks down, very flustered. “I… I can’t, right now, I’m sorry…”

“It’s alright,” Mycroft replies serenely. All in due time. “You’re only human.”

0

Deep underground, in the lowest levels of prison, the Artist waits, pacing his cell. Every once in a while, he will pause and look at his reflection in the camera lens. He’ll trace the words on his face, the words that have spread to his hands and feet and every part of his body.

“John Watson,” he whispers, as if he wants to worship him. “I’ll see you soon.”

Soon.


End file.
